Why the resurrection is so important for this election

Rembrandt's Resurrection

So why should the resurrection bring us hope in our modern world?  If we think about it, the greatest miracle in human history has occurred over 2000 years ago, so what bearing should it have on us today in our postmodern world?  Simply put, the resurrection teaches us where to place our hope. The world places its hope in those things that perish.  Many nations have placed their hope in leaders, and every time, this has lead to downfall.  Just look at the Germans, after World War I, the Germans were in financial ruin, so they placed all their hope in a certain leader, which helped their economy become strong once again, but this also lead to World War II, and it eventually lead to nothing but disappointment (to say the least) when WWII ended.  In more contemporary times, the campaign slogan “hope and change” was used.  There have been many changes, but I don’t know if people are more hopeful.  And now with the current election, people have seem to lost hope in all the candidates.  People no longer vote for the candidate they like, rather they vote for a candidate who they think will do the least amount of  damage to the country.

A nation  placing their hope in a political leader  is nothing new, going back to the old testament the Israelites wanted a king to lead them (1 Sam 8:5).  God warned them that they would be oppressed if they chose to have a king (1 Sam 8:10-18), but of course the Israelites didn’t listen, and as a result we see the divided kingdom, and eventually the Babylonian exile.  In the new testament, not much has changed, in Christ’s trial before pilate, we see the crowd choosing Caesar over Christ.

So what can we learn from all this, to place our hope in someone other than God to lead us, is a hope that will only disappoint.  To place our hope in political leaders, money, power, success,  or anything else that this world can give, will only lead to disappointment, because the hope that we have is a hope that is meant to last an eternity, a hope that will never end.  As a results our hearts are torn between the temporal and the eternal.

When we place our hope in the temporal, at some point we will only become  disappointed.  This is why our political system is so broken, because we have placed our hope in political figureheads who have become gods to our modern culture. They have become false gods, who we, the people, expect to fix all our problems. They make false promises that are impossible to keep, because they are only human like the rest of us.  The culture expects leaders to fix the impossible, and so leaders promise the impossible.  Leaders are simply the reflection of the culture. Case in point, the crowd chose Barabbas over Christ, because Barabbas was a reflection of the crowd turning ugly. The reason why many leaders have become like Barabbas is because the people want Barabbas, and those leaders who try to be like Christ, have had their reputation crucified in the public square.  The crowd chose Caesar to be their king over Christ’s kingship, only to be destroyed by Caesar in 70 A.D. with the fall of the temple. Caesar betrayed the crowd years later when the destruction of the temple occurred, because the crowd betrayed Christ during Christ's trial.  The more our culture and society betrays Christ, the more our leaders will betray us.

There is only one leader who will never disappoint us, and that of course, is Jesus Christ.  Every time the crowds wanted to make Jesus some kind of political leader, he fled (Jn 6:15). Although he fled, he never disappointed.  How come Jesus never disappoints? Because he not only promises the impossible, but he also fulfills and keeps all of his impossible promises, including rising from the dead. How many leaders are able to rise from the dead to keep their promises (and I am not talking about their political careers). Christ is the only leader in history who was able to fulfill his promises, and he was able to give everyone (not just certain groups)  what they truly needed, which is eternal life. Jesus Christ is the only leader in history who was able to keep his promise to the poor, and gave the poor something more than a check, Christ gave the poor a whole kingdom, “Blessed are the poor in spirit the kingdom of heaven is theirs”(Mt 5:3).

The resurrection of Christ offers us certain hope, by ‘certain’ I mean ‘absolute’, that is, you can be absolutely sure that Christ will fulfill all of his promises, even those promises that seem impossible, like rising from the dead.

An integral part of hope, is that, it is a desire for something in the future, either real or illusionary. The more permanent something is, the more real it is. People often have hope in winning the lottery, but once the numbers are drawn, that hope turns to disappointment, because it was only temporary, and therefore an illusionary or false hope. It was a hope that only lasted until the numbers were drawn. On the other hand, Christ is most real because he is most permanent, he is eternal in his divine nature.   Heaven is most real because it is most permanent. So what better person is there to place our hope in, than in Jesus Christ, because  Christ will never cease to exist and therefore he will never disappoint, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Mt 24:35). To put our hope in a future good such as Jesus Christ and heaven will never disappoint us, because they are both eternal, they are permanent, and therefore this becomes a real genuine hope. To say we have hope in the resurrection means we have certainty that neither the devil, sin nor death can prevent  Christ’s promises to us.  

The resurrection fulfills Christ’s impossible promises, and bearing us a genuine hope, a hope that no other leader can or will ever fulfill. So vote for Jesus, you won’t be disappointed. I can guarantee he’ll keep his promises, even if it means rising from the dead.